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Monthly Archives: February 2013

Sure, your sweet snoozing kitty looks harmless. She's not. At least not once she gets outside the house. According to a new study, roaming house cats kill up to 18 birds apiece every year. That doesn't include the average 21 mammals each of them slaughters, but it's harder to lament rodents than robins.

With spring and kitten season almost upon us, it's worth noting the study, which was a product of Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. Among other things, pets are only part of the problem. It's no shock that feral felines kill at least twice as much as house cats. But the overall numbers are a surprise: A non-native species, domestic cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals in the U.S. every year.

"We were absolutely stunned by the results," Marra told The New York Times recently.

Every cat-lover will concede: a cat's gonna do what a cat's gonna do. So it's on us to fix it: Spay or neuter your cats. And keep them inside.

Guards and prisoners aren't the only ones to worry about when the state of Illinois is packing prisons.

A recently-announced plan could bunk another 100 people in the gymnasium at the already-overcrowded Illinois River Correctional Center in Canton. Union and local officials voiced concern about the guards and prisoners.

"My concern is about ALL staff," writes an employee who would like to remain anonymous for fairly obvious reasons. "To perform my duties, I often must go through the armory double doors out into the general population area, as do many clerical staff that work the whole day beyond those armory doors.

"We are all exposed to potentially dangerous situations and possibly the women more than men. Assaults have risen recently in many of our prisons. We must attend training classes each year, and are always told we are all 'security' and be mindful of where we work . . . we are not 'guards,' but known as non-security staff, though the exposure is still there."

Noted.

An employee of Illinois River Correctional Center in Canton points out that there are may different

That's the gist of the discussion when Dr. Jonathan Reyman speaks to the Illinois Valley Archaelogical Society at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 6, at Dickson Mounds Museum. He is the Curator of Anthropology at the Illinois State Museum Research and Collection Center in Springfield.

For more than two millennia, museums have provided records of the past to help people understand themselves — and hopefully avoid past mistakes. According to information from Dickson Mounds' Kim Dunnigan, Reyman will review the different types of museums, why they are important and why they deserve public support.

The presentation is free and open to the public. For more information, call 309-547-3721 or check www.ExperienceDicksonMounds.com.

Writers, artists and photographers have been documenting the wetlands comeback at Emiquon as the "Corps of Discovery" since 2005.

According to The Nature Conservancy, water reappeared in the historic beds of Thompson and Flag lakes within months of the time pumps were shut off in 2007. After almost a century as farmland, native plants sprang up from seed left dormant. More than 300,000 trees have been planted. Hundreds of thousands of birds now use the backwater and more than 30 species of fish can be found there.

Emiquon Corps of Discovery was created in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Illinois Natural History Survey and Dickson Mounds Museum to show the artistic side of the restoration. So Fulton County Arts Council is hosting this year's display of their work until March 12 in the atrium gallery at Graham Hospital in Canton.

For more information, contact Fulton County Arts Council at P.O. Box 254, Canton, Ill. 61520 or www.fultoncountyartscouncil.com. Or try FCAC President Amanda Woodruff at design.awoodruff@gmail.com or 337-6793.

HAVANA — Outdoorsy teens who don't mind the threat of poison ivy and bugs have a chance to work for the Youth Conservation Corps program at Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge this summer — if they apply by April 12.

Names will be selected in a random drawing for eight weeks of work at $8.25 an hour. You will help with projects such as wildlife habitat improvement, refuge maintenance, trails, boundary posting and brush cutting. Working hours are 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

To be eligible you must be at least 15 years of age by the time the program begins on June 10, and no more than 19 years old by the time it ends on Aug. 2. (Those dates may change if budgets are reduced.)

For more information, call Ron Fisher at 535-2290 or check http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Chautauqua.

The Mighty Pits Rescue hopes Fulton County dog lovers will support its mission at the "Itty Bitty Pitty Carnival for Kiddys" next month.

Founder Janie Whitmer has been trying to establish the pitbull rescue group for more than a year. She's seeking donations for what has become a 501(C)(3) organization with a mission "to educate the public about this misunderstood breed." She'll take sponsorships or raffle items, gift certificates "or any other small items that can be used as prizes for the carnival games."

If everything goes off as planned, the carnival will take place at 1 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 23, at the Canton YMCA. For more information, contact Whitmer at 361-1347 or themightypitsrescue@yahoo.com.

Scrambling for a time to meet in person, we hadn't focused on the exact topic of discussion.

So Canton Fire Chief Keith Frank came prepared with all kinds of background and statistics and lists. At least one of his extra comments is worth mentioning.

Under the best of circumstances, there is information which doesn't fit in a newspaper story. This particular piece was about Firefighters Local 1897's no-confidence vote in the chief. The vote was the result of rank-and-file frustration after a vehicle-swapping plan which was designed to upgrade Canton's aging fleet. They got a 1995 pumper that's in the shop; he was about to get a 2013 Ford Expedition. (He didn't. It's on hold until the pumper is fixed.)

Even though the story ran a little longer than average, there was a lot more which could have been said on both sides. Perhaps there will be other opportunities, although city and union officials all say they don't want to hash out their disagreements in the newspaper, which is fine. In fact, one comment which didn't make the cut was Frank referring to his department as a "very passionate and high-spirited group of firefighters . . . very good people."

But the quote which sticks in my head was about the first item on Canton Fire Department's list of accomplishments since Frank took over almost two years ago:

Got email addresses for everyone.

"This is 2011 and these guys didn't have email," he said. "We've got to at least get into the last century."

For example, Wildlife Prairie State Park's Joe Hand solved a bit of a backyard puzzle for me on Saturday. We were visiting while he was getting ready for a live birds of prey demonstration at the Lewistown Visitors Center. According to Hand, the bald eagle needs some time to settle down before fans arrive. Mikitcha, which is Kaskaskian for "eagle," seemed well-aware of his star status to this avian novice. I swear the bird was posing for photos.

Anyway, I told Hand about a hawk which has been terrorizing our little neighborhood. Just the day before, I'd seen it hovering around one of the lilac bushes, groping through the branches to grab an anguished sparrow. Rotten raptor sat on the grass tearing into what was now lunch for about 10 minutes. I figured the sparrow was dead already and there was no point in mounting a rescue effort. But I asked Hand why the hawk couldn't just eat mice or voles or something pestilent.

"Probably a Cooper's hawk. They only eat other birds," Hand said. "Do you have a birdfeeder?"